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Review #4252379
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Review by Tiggy
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Rated: | (3.5)
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Hello ~ Aqua ~,

my name is Tiggy and I am reviewing your story as a judge for "Short Shots: Official WDC Contest" . Thanks for entering! Please bear in mind that my comments and suggestions are only my opinion. Other reviewers might see it differently.


The story wasn’t quite what I had expected after reading the brief description! You only used the image prompt briefly at the beginning to begin the story, but then moved away from it after a few sentences. I wondered if you would return to it, and near the end when Miranda returned to her home planet, I thought this would be when you would mention it in more detail and perhaps describe it more, but that wasn’t where you were going with that part.

Nevertheless, the story was interesting. The idea wasn’t new, but you described the alien attack from the point of view of two of the people who were tasked with fighting them and had just sent their daughter to safety, knowing they would never see her again. The emotions of that situation came across well, especially in the scene where they sent her away, and it was easy to relate to their pain even if the readers haven’t been in a similar situation. The action rose towards a definite climax and then the readers were left to assume that everyone died since they had no chance to defeat the alien invaders, but you didn’t describe the final battle. The story then skipped to a scene 25 years later which confirmed the assumption, although Miranda returned hoping that she would be able to find her parents. I’m not sure how much sense that made – wouldn’t they have known after 25 years that no one had survived and that the planet was now inhabited by the aliens?

I thought the dialogue worked well both to convey character and advance the plot. The descriptions were a little sparse, especially of the cave in the image prompt but also during the battle and in the final scenes. It was sufficient for the readers to understand what was going on, but I would have liked to see a bit more detail. And then there were other parts that contained more details than I thought you needed, for example the way Jen was fascinated by Matt’s eyes, which didn’t seem to add to the story.

I noticed a few spelling errors which you could find with a spell checker so I won’t mention them here, but there were a couple a spell check wouldn’t notice:

Jen's eyes met his sand she was mesmerized
I assume that was meant to say “and” instead of “sand.”

Jen nods to Patrick who presses the button and speaks in the microphone
You suddenly switched to present tense here.

while Peter played an important role
I’m guessing you meant Patrick instead of Peter.

Overall, I think you have an interesting start here but the story could use some work. Now that both the contest and GoT are over, it might be a good opportunity to edit and polish this piece.



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